A desire to reduce suffering, save lives and maintain human dignity is central to understanding humanitarian education.
[1] Humanitarian education is an area of learning that concentrates on the desire or impulse to save lives, protect human dignity and reduce suffering.
It particularly relates to offering assistance to others in an emergency or crisis and is also used to refer to the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for individuals and communities to help themselves.
The goal of humanitarian education is that communities increase their resilience and that individuals and groups are more confident, able and willing to help themselves and others when faced with a crisis.
It does not directly address causes and explicitly avoids exploring political, religious, social class, nationality, economic, environmental or other factors that might contribute to or create a crisis.